Province drops Job Creation Incentive Program

The Alberta government has announcement it is dropping it’s Job Creation Incentive Program introduced in the last budget.

Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous made the announcement this morning.

“Instead budget 2016 will announce our intention to move forward on a number of new initiatives that we believe are much more responsive to current economic realities. And I think you’ll see that your government is moving in the right direction when it comes to jobs and the economy-away from programs that you told us wouldn’t give us the results that we were hoping for.”

He says the government is looking at strategic areas to create jobs, and has announced the creation of a panel to recommend how we can best add value to more of our resources.

Bilous says we’ll hear much more about the government’s new plan for job creation and the economy in Thursday’s budget.

Last year the Notley government unveiled the 2 year $178 million Job Creation Incentive Program which was intended to diversify job creation by contributing grant funding directly to businesses for each job created.